Step #2: TPB’s Start to Look Pretty Good to Consumers

Graphic novels, trade paperback collections, hard cover premiere editions, absolute editions: it doesn’t matter what you call them, the collected edition (we’ll call it the TPB for simplicity’s sake) has been the big growth category for a number of years.  Much has been said about people “waiting for the trade” (a colloquialism seemingly popularized by publishers and creators exasperated that an increasing number of people would rather buy in the book format than the magazine format), and the consumer shift in that direction.  Particularly in the shift in new readers gravitation towards TPB’s.

Aside from getting a larger chunk of material and (frequently) a complete story, one of the virtues touted by the “wait for the trade” crowd is a better price point.  Let’s look at Marvel and some upcoming TPB’s written by Brian (Secret Invasion) Bendis.  The price point for all these books, as reported by Amazon.com, is $14.99.  “Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 21: War of the Symbiotes” reprints 6 issues, so buying it as monthlies would cost you $17.94 with a $2.99 cover price. A savings of $2.95, so you’re essentially getting an issue for free.  “New Avengers Volume 8: Secret Invasion Book 1″ and “New Avengers 9: Secret Invasion Book 2” each reprint 5 issues, so buying it as monthlies would cost you $14.95 with a $2.99 cover price.  Here you’re paying an extra 4 cents to get it in book format.

Now, if these were $3.99 comics, 6 issues would run you $23.94 and unless they significantly raise the price of TPB’s, you’d be saving about $9 by waiting for the TPB on a 6 issue reprint or about $5 on a 5 issue reprint.  That’s enough money to make you stop and seriously think that maybe your money is better spent on the TPB than the monthly, especially in a recession.

Let’s say we have another wave of monthly readers switch to TPB’s.  For Marvel, they issue the book fairly quickly after the storyline ends.  Call it a 1 month wait in most cases, once the story arc is wrapped up.  Sometimes DC rushes the TPB out, and sometimes they wait a couple months, as part of their marketing efforts are to get people buying the monthlies and not waiting for the TPB’s.  Call it somewhere in the 6-9 month range for DC, if you stop a title cold and are waiting for the book.  Bottom line is, if a reader decides to switch to TPB’s, there could be a gap of several months before that new buying cycle can start and how badly would retailers be hit if too many customers started waiting at once?  And the further you get into TPB territory, the greater the threat of Amazon’s discounts looms.  Ask Borders or your local independent bookstore how much fun competing with Amazon discounts is.

Another possible unintended consequence of waiting for trades is the potential loss of buying inertia.  How many people do you know that are a little behind on their monthly reading that keep getting the books with the intention of catching up?  Of those people, how many times have you heard them complain when they caught up on 6 months of a title and realized they should have dropped it?  With TPBs, is it likely the “running behind” reader will wait to buy an TPB until he’s ready to read it, killing the inertia of keeping up with the publishing schedule?  Or would that just be treating TPB more like books?

Also worth mentioning here, managing book sales is very different from managing monthly magazine sales.  This is where Diamond’s insistence on retailers getting modern, computerized inventory systems becomes very important.  Such systems can automatically tell you when you’ve sold out of a book or how long one has been sitting on the shelf.  It remains to be seen how well comics retailers will adapt to the increasing prevalence of TPB’s.

What kind of migration could we continue to see?  10%?  20%?  We do know this segment is growing.

Step #3: The Economy Worsens

You’ve heard economists say that it will get worse before it gets better?  Well, if we’re already seeing readers making cuts on the secondary titles and the economy dips worse,  figure we could reasonably see another 10%+ sales cut across the board.  Ask newspapers and magazines about that one.

Step #4: Borders Goes Under

Where can you count on seeing a comics spinner outside of the direct market?  Borders.  Unfortunately, if you haven’t heard, Borders is not in very good shape right now.  They just announced the closing of their flagship store.  There’s bankruptcy talk.  It might be premature to call it a deathwatch, but let’s just say people are concerned.  Borders is a bigger market for TPB’s and especially manga, than monthly comics, but those TPBs are more easily replaced by Barnes & Noble or Amazon.  While it might only be as small as 2% of the comics newsstand market, that 2% would be a whole lot harder to replace than the TPBs.  This could only add to a “death of 1000 cuts” and kill an entry location for new readers.

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